1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle front camera module integrated with a rearview mirror, and more particularly, to a vehicle front camera module integrated with a rearview mirror, in which a camera module for taking a forward image of a vehicle in a direction of travel and a rearview mirror for displaying the image captured by the camera module or for reflecting and projecting a rear view image of the vehicle to a driver or passenger depending on a user selection are integrally incorporated so as to enable a compact design, wherein the rearview mirror is disposed so as not to interfere with viewing angles of the camera module.
2. Description of the Related Art
A vehicle is typically provided with side mirrors installed at both sides of a vehicle body and a rearview mirror installed at a front and upper position of a vehicle interior in order to assure a driver's clear field of view during forward and rearward traveling.
The recent trend is that a black box device equipped with a camera for taking a forward image of a vehicle in a direction of travel is provided at a front position of a vehicle interior so as to analyze causes of accidents occurring during driving of the vehicle or parking of the vehicle using images stored in the black box device.
The camera, which may be considered as an essential component for taking the overall situation in front of a vehicle, is typically fixed to an upper area of a windshield via an additional coupling element in order to assure a sufficient field of view.
The black box device may be provided with a display unit for displaying an image captured by the camera depending on a user selection.
In such a conventional vehicle which is constructed in the above manner, since a rearview mirror and a black box device are discretely disposed at separate positions of a windshield and thus interfere with a user's field of view during driving, they may cause an accident during driving.
Furthermore, since a camera of the black box device serves only to take and store a forward image of a vehicle in a direction of travel but does not serve to analyze a specific object in a captured image or to detect risk factors, an application range of the device is limited.
In addition, although a black box device should be inevitably provided with a display unit as described above, a front area of a vehicle interior corresponding to a front area of a driver's seat and a front passenger's seat should be previously provided with various observation instruments such as an instrument cluster assembly, a navigation device and an AVN system which are inevitably required for reliable driving, thus making it difficult to assure safe driving.